Coexistence
In 2.3 million years, a lot has changed. For starters, at the end of the 25th century, war breaks loose. War for technological advancements, religious freedom, democracy and claims to land leave only a few countries remaining, the United States of America (now with Canada and Mexico combined) control much of South America and China and Russia battle for control over much of Eurasia, while Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom try to hold their own against these corrupted world powers. Scientists in Japan start to do something that will change the face of humanity’s history – they design super soldiers, but not a human or robotic super soldier as the US and other world powers had done in the past and deploy. Super soldiers made through genetically engineering and combining genetic material of organisms. An armory made up of biological weapons from the depths of imagination, rodents genetically engineered with human-only expressed genes to gather data and personal information from other countries. Eventually Japan reaches Australia with this technology (as they are close allies by this point and time) and a new more deadly generation of biological supers soldiers are created by using Australian fauna; a corvid with the ability to gather advanced human information, taipans genetically engineered with advanced mammalian intelligence. What made biological soldiers like these more effective in many cases, was that fact that they appeared and were to an extant just “regular animals”. Would you suspect a crow, a rat or a taipan of being a spy? However genetically modified organisms aren’t the only animals that have changed, as humans started to encroach on almost all of Earth, many species had to evolve to coexist with us and even to aid us in assistance in need for survival. The fighting between people, left many pets and livestock to become feral and the father technological developments of countries meant that the animals we viewed as pests would have to find better ways to adapt to our life. Many megafauna were also forced to make drastic changes, which would affect their evolution, wolves became smaller and more passive towards humans as wolves that showed aggression were killed. Deer were abundant over almost all human inhabited continents (including Australia) and cats evolved ways to hunt the creatures of the streets. Birds have had to adapt to the environments drastically changed by human beings during wars and development, birds such as turkeys and feral chickens evolving to live in the noisy cities of New York city and groundhogs, hawks, eagles and flying squirrels taking advantage of the skyscrapers and hotels. After an entirety of three decades, the war is over. Japan and China have signed a treaty, as Russia and the US have as well. The biological super soldiers to many of the people were nothing, but dark reminders of the crimes that war took from humanity and although at first the government opposed the idea, these soldiers were abandoned or destroyed. The extremely lucky ones found small untouched patches of wilderness that still hung on, while others were used as glorified pets or sometimes used as a thing to torture and use for target practice (in the case of the US military). What the people failed to realize was that by abandoning these in many cases sapient animals, they were just in the long run helping them spread as these GMOs bred with the normal variants of the species and produced more and more. After thousands of years and countries changed and were erased, new empires spread and new ideas spread with that. The animals were heavily affected with the millions of years of coevolution with humans and began to evolve to live in these expanding cities or to at the very least in cases of large megafauna, adapt and understand them. Humans diverged into one ethnic group shaped by Asian, European, Latin-American and African cultural values and eventually became to find ways to tolerate fauna. Using the trees they had cultivated in human captivity for years, they planted forests and set small sections of land out for nature and largely nature alone to deal with. Humans also became more independent, settling in small advanced villages and "kingdoms". A creature that found ways to exist with humans are the warrats. Warrats are large murid that are descended from both brown rats and genetically modified rats used in war. As a result, they are extremely intelligent and can understand much human language, their intelligence has led them to be more welcomed than their distant ancestors. They are fed often by people and have been know to be adopted as pets. They are found in woodland and forest and usually weigh around 12-20 lbs and standing around 14 inches tall. They are primarily herbivores and have digestive systems adapted to eating a very wide variety of human foods. They are said to make wonderful pets, due to their sapience and can be trained to used a toilet, they are thought to be very hard to adopt out of the wild, because of their high emotional and intellectual habits. Warrats are found in Japan, with introduced populations in New York, Canada and Australia. In the wild, they primarily feed on fruits, such as apples and buts such as chestnuts, they also eat will grasses and flowers and have been known to scavenge off of garbage (though this is rare). Warrats are illegal to hunt due to their intelligence and have been known to attack humans if under threat. The very intelligent house crow is a large sapient species of corvid that has coevolved with humans. They are said to preform what appear to be tricks or begging to receive food or boarding in people's houses. They are primarily black, but have patches of gray and white covering their bodies. The house raven can also sometimes break into people houses and have a very good memory. Sometimes they are captured or found as eggs by people and cared for as pets, they make very good pets as long as they are allowed free-range. Their diet consists of nuts, fruits, vegetables, insects, carrion, fish and some other human foods. They are found wherever humans live, but with especially high populations in what was once Italy and California. In some Californian tribes, they are highly respected as members. They are capable of "speaking" human words and can understand, if taught how to of course. The street turkey is a large turkey species that has evolved to live in suburban and crowded habitats; examples are cities and busy towns. They are gray in plumage and have large wings than their descendants which allow them to fly more agile than their descendants. Males have very colorful markings and patterns on their faces, with females lack these. It is thought that males have these to attract mates and show clear sexual dimorphism. They are sometimes hunted, but due to their habit of feeding on human waste, it is heavily frowned upon. Though they almost always live in cites and other human populated areas, this does not mean they cannot live in forests or grassland without ease. Street turkeys aren't very intelligent and usually avoid humans directly, they will live on top of buildings or in abandoned houses. These birds are thought to be a sign of luck and fertility amongst the native New Yorkers. The very hardy Canadian qurep is a large bison-like descendant of feral goats, they are intelligent and are used for rides across mountains. Appearance-wise, they look similar to yaks and mountain goats, but have a personality more akin to that of domesticated dogs. Qurep are considered very good and obedient animals. They are sometimes used for their milk and it's considered a modern taboo to eat their meat. However, from historical scripture, they have very fatty meat that is marbled similar to Kobe beef. Canadian qurep are also used as mounts by explorers to climb high mountainous ranges and compete with deer and wild sheep. Fletch ducks are a very rare species of duck that are descendants of domesticated ducks. They are highly sought after for their taste and are thought to be very hard to hunt, because of their intelligence. They are consider critically endangered because they are heavily hunter, though in some areas they are on the Least Concern list. They are primarily brown and unlike other ducks, show very little sexual dimorphism. The very common, but docile Australian street monitor or simply street monitor is a large (about 2 meters long) highly intelligent monitor, that can be found in coastal parts of Australia. Though they usually prefer saltwater they can live just at home in freshwater and take the ecological niche of the extinct saltwater crocodile in Australia. They have been bred by humans to be more docile and make good reptilian companions as they have intelligence and a learning system akin to that of a domestic dog. Street monitors are threatened because of hunting pressure, but are still relatively common in some areas. Most common in Queensland, but can appear anywhere in Australia and despite of popular belief, they do not need to be in water to survive like crocodiles or other aquatic reptiles. Zhu pandas are larger descendants of giant pandas, that have evolved to the urban Chinese city environment. They have evolved to feed on a species of city-living species of Giant Bamboo and are very passive towards most animals. Zhu pandas are treated with respect and can commonly be trained to preforms human tasks and even be invited into houses or given articles of clothing. These bears live primarily in China, but with a small population in Canada, Italy and Japan. Zhu pandas are very similar to Giant Pandas, but differ greatly in size and adaptability. Zhu pandas are more likely to scavenge off of human garbage and eat meat than their ancestors and have teeth more adapted for an omnivorous lifestyle. Category:Future Evolution